Posts Tagged ‘BAE Systems’

In the final hours of December 2015 we attacked the offices of the
defense contractor BAE Systems on River Boulevard in Richmond with paint
and sledge hammers.

BAE Systems make billions from war and their technology is responsible
for countless civilian deaths worldwide.

This action was carried out as part of Black December, a month of
anarchist direct action that was initiated by the anarchist prisoners
Nikos Romanos and Panagiotis Argirou in Greece.

We also carried out this action in solidarity with anarchist prisoners
held hostage by states worldwide and in solidarity with Indigenous
prisoners held hostage by the colonist ‘authorities’ here in so-called
‘Australia’ – all of whom are political prisoners.
Black December is everywhere!
Anarchist Office Refurbishment Cell

Tuesday 2nd September
– No borders noise demo at UK Borders Agency in Cardiff
– Activist locks himself inside Cardiff Keep in Cardiff Castle where the NATO dinner is due to be held

Wednesday 3rd September – Activists hand in a demand for the arrest of NATO leaders to police in Newport, based on evidence leaked by Chelsea Manning of war crimes.

Thursday 4th September
– No to NATO March on Celtic Manor from centre of Newport and mass demo against the NATO dinner at Cardiff Castle
– Activists chalk out the connections between NATO and arms companies in Newport

Friday 5th September
– Activists again try to present evidence of war crimes at Newport police station
– Occupation of Barclays Bank in Newport calling for Barclays to ditch their shares in Israeli arms company, Elbit. Four activists glue themselves inside the bank

Last week we saw a diverse struggle against NATO in Cymru. Marches against NATO in the streets of Newport and Cardiff; actions against the forces driving war in the banks and the securitised zones; workshops and discussions at the camp about connected issues from Gaza to police repression at the camp; people spreading the word in a hundred different ways, from conversations with locals, to the camp, to the web. But the struggles against capitalism and militarism are not a one-day, or even a one-week, event. The actions taken this week by Stop NATO Cymru, the Anarchist Action Network and other organisations are a small part of building up a movement capable of bringing about radical change.

So, when we look back, does it make sense to ask whether we “succeeded” in the week of action? We think it does. If one more mind went beyond the distortions of the mainstream media because of what we did, then yes we ‘succeeded’. If one more pair of feet was spurred onto the streets by what we did, then we succeeded. And if one more pair of hands joined with ours, yes, we succeeded. In the coming struggles, those hands will again pick up the tools to take action, until the last drone is smashed. We hope to see you there.

International anti-prisons insurrectional newsletter Dark Nights is back after a summer break. Front page news is the communique by ‘FAI “Sacco & Vanzetti” Circle of Propaganda by Life & by Deed’ for the incendiary attack prior to the NATO summit in Wales, against BAE Systems Arms Development Centre. News of this new anarchist urban guerrilla attack taking place has been suppressed by the regime, as they are frightened of the spread of the anti-system attacks and the damage to the image of the blood-soaked company. The fiery attack took place in Filton, Bristol, where many military-industrial-technological companies are situated, and proved that the direct action groups can strike the military-industrial complex in their closed sites.

Primary article by individualist nihilist-anarchist comrade Venona Q. is about authoritarian fundamentalism and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The brief article is about raw power and the total liberation war against all Gods and States. Against “progress”, the “West”, “democracy” and “civilisation”, the writer sounds a sharply critical and vengeful cry against the mullahs, militias, bureaucrats and fundamentalist murderers of the Middle East and the West alike. Reminding us of the continuous visions of the fight for human dignity against dominion by concepts, authorities and the power of death.

There’s an incomplete round-up of direct action sabotages, attacks and riots in our chronology, compiling incidents since late May 2014, and a complimentary section giving coverage to the International Week for Anarchist Prisoners which recently took place, that was organised by the world-wide Anarchist Black Cross groups, counter-information groups, action cells and others. During the last few months there have been intense efforts taking place in prisons across Europe, as prisoners in Greece carried out a campaign and hungerstrike against the Type C prison plans, where Domokos prison will be turned into a huge Guantanamo. The hungerstrike is finished now, but the prisoners of Greece and their friends and relatives have vowed to undertake an struggle by all means. This has now spread into the prisons of Germany and Switzerland, as prisoners there also found common cause and solidarity with the fight taking place and carried out their own hungerstrike mobilisation. This kind of trans-border action is a vital sign of a re-construction of the new internationalist struggle happening and we are with the prisoners in struggle in our hearts, words, thoughts and actions.

And there is the usual selection of prisoners letters, including the text by imprisoned anarchist Carlos ‘Chivo’ Lopez in Mexico about informality, an article by the imprisoned members cell of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire about negation, coherence and refusal in the active sense during the trial prosecuting them, plus news reports and more writings from our imprisoned comrades enabling their wishes, dreams and struggles to escape beyond the walls of the prisons.

We mounted our attack against the BAE Systems arms factory in the Filton area of Bristol by setting a fire against the fuel tank outside the onsite Advanced Technology Centre (Impact Facility – High Power Electro Magnetic Facility section) on August 29th. Today we now announce carrying this out in the context of the NATO summit in Newport in five days. Britain is rife with military industrial complex structures all year round and everyone can draw her or his own conclusion.

BAE Systems are possibly the largest so called defence multinational and they are Britain’s largest manufacturing employer. Some of their major projects with the British Armed Forces alone are the NATO Eurofighter jets and nuclear submarines.

From artillery and aerial drones with specialist communication systems to the Israeli Air Force F16 fighter bombers and the shackles used on detainees in Guantánamo Bay you can find BAE Systems across the world behind imperialist conquest and the death or immiseration of millions. The company now has branches in criminal intelligence and investigation that deal with matters like cyber threats to the banking industry and was contracted by the European Union to devise the Strategic Crime and Immigration Information Management System : essentially an international police database. They are in line to profit from managing the transition of analytics from analysis of physical locations to analysis of individuals and how they interact for the advantage of law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

The factory where we hit produces hardware including that of naval frigates and combat vehicles and there hundreds of staff with the Advanced Technology Centre design cutting edge weaponry for global markets. Just a few of their specialities are :

BAE Systems are at the forefront of military robotics as well as the latest innovations such as cloaking devices for tanks and body armour formed from liquid to make the modern flesh and blood killing machine even more agile and deadly. Look to their armoured land vehicles which are autonomous of human supervision (like those patrolling the Israeli-Gaza and Israeli-Lebanon border zones) or the tiny above ground or under water machines modelled on insects for audio-visual reconnaissance to see a sign of our future they are preparing.

The company make explicit reference to the age of asymmetric warfare and the crossover from use of their products on the battle field to use within society at large : a common phenomenon in the sector. A case to illustrate this is the high power BAE Systems night vision gear finding its way into the civilian surveillance camera market to advance the project making open prisons out of the urban centres and anywhere it is needed to protect the system and its commodities.

Need we write more to demonstrate how technological development under the civilised power structure is leading us to a desolate automated landscape of near total dominance and potential annihilation? The hour is late and the brave new world with amplified demand for submission will be the price for our indifference.

To go after them on what they thought was safe ground is what we decided to return in kind for the business BAE Systems have chosen. Through the attack we are with those incarcerated for their own path towards anarchy :